Compare the area's rail and bus systems

Washington area is lucky to have so many transit options. But how they differ? Metro created an infographic that compares the area's current (and some future) rail systems as well as several levels of bus service:

Click on the image for a full-size version. What surprises you about this information?

Comments

How is the average passenger trip length on the DC streetcar 4 miles? There is not 4 miles of track to run that streetcar on. Are you anticipating people just riding it back and forth to rack up mileage?

This makes the H Street Streetcar look more efficient than it truly is. Such a waste of resources...

This is a (somewhat surprisingly) easily readable, very informative, and comprehensive infographic. It would be nice if every resident of the DC Area could look at this. Too often I hear people confusing rapid transit/heavy rail with commuter rail or referring to the Purple Line light rail as a "trolley." Most people also don't seem to understand the difference between different bus modes either unless they're patrons.

(Maybe looking at this the Arlington County govt will finally see how much cheaper BRT is, for only a relatively small reduction in capacity)

The only thing I would change with the graphic is to maybe add an additional tier to both the high and low ends. Some people actually do use intercity/high-speed rail (i.e. Amtrak's NEC) to commute from other states, and identifying the most basic local bus services (eg. local Metrobus, RideOn routes), despite the huge variation in costs and land use, could be useful to smaller suburban jurisdictions.

sigh. please look at the footnotes. The capacity and cost figures are based on WMATA experience (presumably for the modes WMATA already runs) and on averages from national databases. It is NOT projections for projects currently in planning. It is also NOT theoretical, but based on empirical data.

@asffa, where are you seeing the 22k figure associated with CCT? I'm not seeing that. Also, read the footnotes.. the data is based on national databases. The figures are typical representations of a particular mode and not indicative of any specific project. Also, .60 figure is operating cost, not capital cost (design and build).

The comparison on Columbia Pike is not Streetcar vs. BRT, but Streetcar vs. Enhanced bus. Enhanced bus is listed on the chart with half the capacity of a streetcar (passenger per hour per direction). I'd also like to see adding basic local bus service on the chart as you suggested and see how it compares to enhanced bus.

I ride VRE and sometimes MARC, and I'm sure that neither has a vehicle that seats 190 people. Also, I wouldn't call their right-of-way "dedicated" except for the MARC Penn Line, which is virtually all passenger trains. The VRE lines and the other MARC lines are shared between passenger and freight trains.

@Steve Dunham: "Dedicated" here means "not shared with cars or other modes" (though I wonder then what it will be called if a streetcar and buses share the K Street Transitway). I suppose what you mean is more like "exclusive." And that's without getting into "grade separation..."